Posts by johnnymotel

Apple iPhone 4S grabs back ground lost to Android

sensible design as in...

the Nokia Lumia 800....

doesn't that one have a built in battery too??

Reg Hardware Awards 2011 Winners

"Yes, it polled well in the Smartphone of the Year, gaining a Silver, runner-up award, but Apple's latest handset was also the most disliked offering in the Mobile category."

oh, I guess that must be why it sold a shed load worldwide....

Channel 5 snubs Freeview HD again

CH5 bit rates suck!

Was watching Groundhog on 5* or something, simply awful blockiness on transitions and anything other than stock still shots. Looks like they are transmitting the absolute bare minimum.

Maybe they need to improve their SD offerings first.

Android grabs quarter of tablet market

again, again..."shipped" not sold

I call BS on these figures, shipped into the channels is NOT sold to the customer.

Samsung reveals release for 5in tablet

anecdotally....

the wife saw an ad for the Galaxy S phone, she asked me if this was an iPod.

Now, ok, she is not as technically aware as myself, but if Sammy can 'fool' enough people with their look-a -like phones, tablets etc then perhaps Apple has a case to argue here.

It's all in the marketing.

How Apple's Lion won't let you trash documents

Quicklook?

if you just need to check a document and not to keep it, then Quicklook is built into Mail.

Vogel's RingO iPad mounting system

"itunes...crappy...software"

total cost to mount...£280.

They must be joking, guess it's only aimed at the rich kids.

Microsoft vs Google patent ding dong gets stuck on repeat

barbed ending

"Just sue the fuck out of Google instead of making better products"

think a lot of folk/users would contend that....

MP3 player....much better product than the others

Smartphone....probably reinvented the category, slipping on some features, but still a good product

MacBook Air....upset the applecart on lightweight, fast, notebooks, so much so Intel is giving the OEM's all the help they can to stay in the game, read Ultrabook

Mr Bean prangs £650k McLaren

2011 Ford Focus

now that's supposed to be a nice safe car.

Google claims 'bogus patent' conspiracy against Android

not the whole truth...

Since this statement, MS issued their own statement, that Google were invited to join the consortiums, they REFUSED. So now they complain?

Note to Apple: Be more like Microsoft

Apple has a history to deal with...

Apple has been the underdog for so many years, up to around the turn of the millennia.

I think this engendered a very specific culture within the company and squirrelling away cash being one of them.

It's the 'rainy day' concept.

But I think this has more to do with SJ than anyone else. Given SJ will have to move on (or up..) one day, I think come that time the culture will start to change.

The cash pile will be utilised one way or another.

MacBook batteries susceptible to hack attacks

the original article...

http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2011/07/22/apple-laptops-vulnerable-to-hack-that-kills-or-corrupts-batteries/

I would say that other vendors using similar batteries will have a similar issue as Apple. Miller is a Mac security expert and only looks at Mac. The fact that he is the first to discover it, indicates how obscure this attack is. However, I am certain that Apple and others will produce at update to create a random password.

I am certain Mr Miller had direct access via Terminal to do this hack.

So long as Mac users run their main account as Standard and not Admin, intelligent users are well protected, plus if the upgrade to Lion they will be even more protected.

Data Robotics gives up and changes name to Drobo

What?

u still on floppies?

News Corp kills BSkyB bid amid 'difficult climate'

seeing the light

Karma...wot goes around...comes around

But I believe you are correct, slowly, slowly the 'old order' is crumbling, it happens.....

Check Roman Empire

Check USA Imperialism

Check GB Imperialism

Check Old Style Capitalism??

Moi? I love it, can't get enough of change, change, change...

not the time for logic

mon ami

Hunt refers News Corp/BSkyB bid to Competition Commish

that's OK

just syndicate CBH to the Fox Network, right up their gutter.

the ultimate sentence?

send the murdoch's back to OZ and force them to watch Cell Block H 24/7

Apple's chief patent lawyer exits, says report

Nokia payment

OK, let's get this straight, once and for all.

Apple had no issue with paying for a Nokia license on FRAND terms, it's just that Nokia wanted more than FRAND and they wanted cross-licensing. This was all stated and up front from the beginning. So the battle began with each side throwing bigger and bigger stones. For all us plebs know, Nokia did finally agree to FRAND terms and didn't get any cross-license deal. There would have a been a back-payment for unpaid dues and maybe a one-off to get rid of Nokia's other claims.

So probably a win-win for both sides.

Why the guy left, could be due to Samsung's recent complaint that some of the legal people Apple are using have past associations with Samsung.

On another matter, I find it amusing HTC should complain of 'Apple not competing fairly' just recently when one by one the Android makers are coughing up royalties to MS. Of course, the MS patents are court proven patents and quite possibly Apple is using HTC to prove their patents.

News of the World TO CLOSE

hey there's a downside...

once less rag to wipe my arse with.

Volvo S60 DRIVe

a flaw in find my car?

there you are parked up in nice Ikea's multi-floor, mega carpark and you forget where you parked the new motor....so does GPS work through x meters of concrete & steel?

I guess it will guide you to the last known GPS position.....at the entrance.

Or is it much, much smarter than this and can calculate all the left and right turns you made to get to your parking spot.

BSkyB/News Corp merger: Wait for the cops, says Ofcom

not so much ofcom but the gov.

Mr Cameron should just listen to his electorate and stand up to NI/Murdoch, demand a root & branch clear out of NOTW.

Clearly they have a bad, nasty culture growing in the AC vents, infecting all.

Mr Cameron would be surprised how his rating would increase if he just actually DID something about this cancer.

Apple's white MacBook drought set to flip to gush

OMG!

Tony!! is this REALLY you? Comments from the "team" are a rarity....must be a boring moment at El Reg.

600 tonne asteroid in low pass above Falkland Islands - TONIGHT

mmmmmm.....

a flying wedge of overweight coppers?

Pentax Q takes mini system camera crown

sensor size

Canon G12, is the sensor of similar size? It does RAW and I believe the results are not bad.

For me, the key feature I want is DSLR focussing speeds.

Constantly missing moments because the focus was still working is a major negative.

That's why I recently bought the Panasonic GH2.

Acrobatic US driver in 85mph back-seat drunk sex prang

the 'italian version'

I remember a story from many years ago. This Italian judge dismissed a court case of a couple having 'alleged sex' in the old style Fiat 500, because it was 'alleged' that it was physically impossible to have said sex in a Fiat 500.

Nikon Coolpix P300 compact camera

4/3rds?

I recently bought a GF2 with a zoom and pancake. So far very impressed with the IQ in RAW, the in camera processing lets down the JPEG's. But it's quick to shoot with, not quite as fast as a mid-price DSLR, but fast enough to get most candid shots.

Not so impressed with the touch screen, it may not appeal to some people. For them perhaps the ELP2 for Oly is a better choice. At least that's the feelings of Thom Hogan who is a big Nikon fan and uses the Oly as well.

The Oly has a better electronic viewfinder.

Apple wades in to defend developers

FWIW

read the article on the Beeb website, where this kid was interviewed about his app. He actually admits he didn't think it would get accepted, because he knew he was stepping in areas that were not approved by Apple. Then he goes ahead and submits it, of course it gets refused....

The icon? I believe the kid's icon is a mash up of two of Apple's icons, sufficiently different to not attract a nasty legal letter. Apple already had the sync icon and the wifi icon, put the two together and you have wifi sync. The Apple icon uses a precise combination of their current icon set.

A peek inside Apple's iCloud data center

or this?

there are two identical data centres on this one site, supplied by separate power supplies and separate backup supplies.

Apple pilfers rips off student's rejected iPhone app

it could be argued...

that his icon is deliberately designed to not 'infringe' on Apple's icons set. Notice how the sync part is offset. He must have thought hard when he created his icon and decided to make one that could be accused of blatantly copying any of Apple's icon set.

Whitebox tablet sales surge smacks down iPad

I call BS & FUD

"Though Apple remains the largest tablet-pusher globally – with a 54 per cent market share "

So out of the 7+million Apple sells this quarter, the 'opposition' sold 6+million?

Gimme a break!

Apple uncloaks top 10 tools of iOS 5

buy more space

more space can be bought from Apple. So I guess my 25GB of space (of which I use only 15) will probably cost me an extra $20?? That's a lot less than $99 for my last renewal. Personally, I am all for this iCloud, I don't make heavy use of Mobile Me, just Mail, shared documents and iWeb, plus some storage for my customers.

Mac trojan evades Apple's brand new security fix

btw

el reg has not run a recent story about the bank accounts email spammers use, seems they use mainly three...repeat only three.....banking organisations. So simple to block these institutions and block the spammers means of remuneration.

oh dear fanboyz

is so simple, open system prefs, click on accounts and see if your account is standard or admin.

next step...if admin, create a new account called...ummm....admin...with a nice strong password

next step...logout and log back in as admin

next step...go to system prefs, open accounts, select you personal user account and un-tick 'administer this computer'

next step...log out, log back in as main user account

use & enjoy

just don't lose that super strong password, you will need it from time to time to install any software upgrades.

of course, some idgit will still manage to install some trojan or malware, but then as Einstein said once "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.”

Apple nemesis sues iOS, Mac, and Android devs

move to Europe?

surely, if the patents are US, then if the dev sets up in the EU, they cannot be touched. Maybe not possible for al, but for some maybe?

Licensing a patent does not necessarily legitimise the patent.

Read Foss Patents for better coverage of this and another despicable patent troll.

RIM PlayBook strikes back at Jobsian internet dream

airline pilots use them....

I think airline pilots do 'real work', so now airlines are trailing iPads in cockpit and the pilots love them. It's not a 6lb laptop, with dual core CPU's etc, but it does help them with their real work. Same goes for doctors, lawyers etc.

The tablet is such an interesting market, it clearly is not all things to all people, but it can be some things to some people. I guess in some ways it's an extension to the laptop/desktop computer, but with extreme portability and excellent battery life thrown in.

Steve Ballmer window-dresses Windows 8

backtracking already??

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/05/25/microsoft_retracts_ballmers_windows_8_in_2012_comments.html

Simply viewing Apple kit provokes religious euphoria

equally funny...

would be if the same MRI scanner found that using Windows gave the same brain responses as people feeling suicidal.

How to choose the right screen size

square pixels all round

Most broadcasters use 1440x1080 for transmission which is an anamorphic version of 1920x1080. That means it is 16x9 squashed to roughly 4:3 and then expanded again(similar to what they do to films on DVD). The scalers in settop boxes will do the conversion back to 1920 so the viewer never actually sees 1440. They do this because the slight drop in horizontal resolution (almost invisible to viewers on all but the largest displays at sensible viewing distances), saves some bitrate which in turn makes the MPEG compression easier (hence less coding artefacts). This is not a BBC only thing, almost everyone does it because it makes the pictures at broadcast bitrates look better!

As for overscan, the 16x9 picture, which is now 1920 scaled from 1440, is completely overscanned on most TVs which means that even broadcasting 1920 and receiving on a 1920 display doesn't always give you pixel mapping, and you never see pixel mapped 1440 as that would be the wrong aspect ratio so everyone would look short and fat!

Planet with British weather found 20 light years away

straws & clutching

come to mind

RIM BlackBerry PlayBook 7in tablet

recalled!!

http://macdailynews.com/2011/05/16/rim-recalls-playbook-tablets/

Motorola Xoom

does the menu bar move?

when it's in portrait mode?

Pads propel PC market growth

knock apple if you like...

but they seem to be a major driver in this industry.

Apple confirms white iPhone 4 on sale tomorrow

"itunes...crappy...software"

this is not el reg making a hoo-haa, it's el reg shamelessly looking for hits.

Apple stuns Wall Street with 95% earnings surge

my next upgrade...

from my ATI 3870 to the ATI 6870 and not a Mac specific card either, an ASUS branded card. Seems Apple gave us MP users some nice 6xxx drivers to play with.

Then next one is to upgrade the 2nd optical bay to hold an SSD & 3.5'HD.

I'd also disagree with the internal build quality of other Apple lines. I have a laptop, replaced the HD for an SSD. Inside it looks amazing, not a single inch of wasted space. Compared to my very old Pismo, it's a work of art :)

my experience

Ummmm....my MacPro is over 3 years old, it's still churning out NTSC to PAL conversions most days of the week. It's been seriously upgraded in RAM, storage & gfx.

IMO it's an amazing piece of engineering, if anything it's over-engineered.

Yes it cost more than other computers, but I figure it has about another 2 years working life, then it goes on Ebay and I'll probably reap 50% of it's purchase price.

So yes, Apple does great marketing but they also do great engineering.

UK retailers reveal plans to push BlackBerry PlayBook

tablets are different?

The total number of iOS devices sold which are all 'hand-held computing devices'. Have a look at the Samsung filing, ~180 million iOS devices so far.

Second, this market segment of tablets that Apple has taken by storm, is not going to be such a push-over as the phone market.

Just asking, what would the Android share be really, if they weren't almost given away? Will the tablet market follow the same formula? Doesn't the cheap Android phone depend greatly on the carrier subsidy? What if folk aren't interested in having a data plan? That means the cost of the tablet will have to reflect the true cost of parts, R&D etc.

I'd still like to see HP come out with their WebOS tablet.

Sony ships 50m PS3s

ipad2...60mill in 2011

yay

'Thickest burglar' leaves passport at scene of raid

clearly!

he prefers prison to the outside world...

Slow Shutter Cam

absolute....

bollocks*%@^*!£^%$

Samsung intros 'skinnier than iPad 2' tablets

"itunes...crappy...software"

guess that puts a hex on iPad.